Today I arrived in Peru. My flight from Los Angeles to Lima was 30 minutes late, so I almost missed my flight to Cusco. Fortunately, the lady at the check-in desk pushed the flight time back ten minutes just so I could catch the flight. When I arrived in Cusco, I picked up my bags and headed toward the city to find a representative from ProWorld waiting for me. I was on the flight to Cusco with another one of my friends, John Yoo. The first thing we both noticed when we got to Cusco was that it was a little bit hard to breathe and that short walks and even climbing a flight of stairs was difficult. I had read that Cusco was at a very high altitude, contributing to our inability to breathe. But I had never imagined that it would be quite so bad. From the airport in Cuzco, we headed towards the heart of the city and to the hostel we would be staying at for the night, Los Aticos. Cusco as a city is shaped like a puma, with the head near the district of Los Sauces and the tail near the southwest corner of the city.
Our hostel was near the Plaza de Armas, the main square in Cusco. There are many shops in the vicinity selling myriad quantities of interesting things, everything from llama blankets to simple Incan trinkets. However, even though we wanted to go out and explore the city, we were still extremely tired from our travels and felt like sleeping. After a short nap, I came down to the kitchen in our hostel, where I met the rest of our DukeEngage group, about twenty people in total. While we were all together now, we would soon be split up, as the students in Urubamba would go there to work on their projects while the rest of us stayed in Cusco. I noticed that they were all drinking tea, with large green leaves floating on top. After asking around, I figured out this was Mate de Coca, or coca tea. While this may seem alarming, it is not. Coca leaves are the same leaves that are used to make cocaine, but it takes over 250 leaves to make a single gram of cocaine. Since we were only using 5-10 leaves per cup of tea, we were not actually ingesting serious amounts of cocaine. Moreover, coca tea is the traditional Andean remedy for altitude sickness, the reason why we were all feeling short of breath and having difficulty doing strenuous activity. I quickly became fond of the tea, whose taste can be described as being very light but with a little kick at the end. Add in a little bit of brown sugar, and the drink becomes extremely tasty, not to mention helpful for dealing with the altitude.
We then went to go get lunch as a group, and went to the restaurant La Cofradia. Here, I tried lomo saltado, a traditional Peruvian dish consisting of shredded beef sautéed with onions, peppers, and tomatoes, served alongside a bed of rice. I must say that it was quite possibly one of the most delicious things I have ever eaten. The spices were excellent, and I felt that the ingredients were all extremely fresh. After the meal, we were all quite tired and full, and headed back to our hostel.
When we got back, we rested for a little while before going on a trolley tour of the city. On the tour, we got to see many of the famous sights in Cusco, including Cristo Blanco (White Christ) up on the top of one of the highest mountains. From here, we had what is referred to as the best view of Cusco. We also got to see our first llamas and alpacas, along with some of the districts in the city. On the way back, we were all getting a little hungry, remembering how delicious the meal was at lunch.
For dinner, we went to another restaurant, where I had Peruvian style steak with rice and papas fritas (French fries). This restaurant also had a salad bar that had lettuce, tomatoes, pasta, and beets. However, none of the people in our group ate the lettuce or the tomatoes. The reason for this was that Peru does not have purified drinking water coming out of the tap like the United States. Thus, it is not wise for anyone to drink the water straight from the tap or even to have foods that are difficult to wash, such as lettuce and tomatoes. Furthermore, we were advised not to eat anything that we couldn’t peel, making apples, pears, and many vegetable off limits. However, we were especially wary of the lettuce, since lettuce is hard to clean even in the United States. Something I started to catch onto was that the Peruvians eat a lot of potatoes, and that they are served with nearly every meal. I ended the meal with some pineapple-passion fruit juice and some more mate de coca.
After eating, we went back to the hostel and rested for a bit before going out to some of the clubs in the Plaza de Armas. We went to Mythology, which is a club geared specifically towards tourists. Something I found really interesting was that all of the clubs in the area were giving out free drinks to the tourists in an effort to get us to buy drinks at their clubs. After visiting a couple of clubs, we finally ended up in Mythology. I tried the Pisco Sour there, the national drink of Peru. This drink is made with Pisco, which is liquor similar to tequila, a raw egg white, and some sugar and bitters. Preparing for a very strange taste due to the raw egg, I was pleasantly surprised by how tasty the drink was. As a result, I proceeded to order one more for myself. We all danced and partied together for a couple of hours, and finally left the club at 12:30am, returning back to the hotel.
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